"Adventures which Relieved Those Afflicted by Care": Society and the Other

As a way of possibly working towards some understanding of what I see as Marie de France’s core attitudes towards “othering” and the Other (and in order to write my way into this posting), I want to address and juxtapose "Lanval" and "Yonec," the two lais which, perhaps fortuitously, we did not cover yesterday in class. I read these works as mirror images of each other; "Yonec" inverts the plot and characterization of "Lanval" while preserving the same structure and theme. In "Lanval," the “othered” male, the foreign knight forgotten and neglected by the masculine society surrounding him, for whom no one would “have uttered a single regret if misfortune had befallen him,” is approached by the feminine Other in a tangible and fully realized form. Similarly, in "Yonec," the othered female, imprisoned in a tower and completely separated from the encompassing society and its norms, institutions, and power structures, is approached by a representative of the realized Other, this time in masculine form. In both cases, a secret union with this supernatural visitor provides the protagonist, Lanval or “the lady,” with an outlet and a remedy for his or her own, socially-imposed otherness. Also, both protagonists eventually betray the secrecy of their relationship, though they do so without malicious intent and, in the lady’s case, without even volition.

Of course, the outcomes of these stories differ markedly, and it is worth noting how, in "Lanval," the ultimate manifestation of the feminine Other beguiles and disarms the masculine society of Arthur’s court, whereas in "Yonec," the masculine Other poses a profound threat to be met with violent subterfuge. (Although Arthur overreacts as violently to a threat to his sexual possession of his wife as the lord in Yonec does.) In any case, the symmetry of these two lais is richly suggestive in a number of ways.

For example, I found intriguing the hint in "Yonec" that Muldumarec the hawk-knight was as much of an “other” in his own society as the lady is in hers (or Lanval is in his). Dying in his own country, Muldumarec tells the lady, “Flee from here!...There would be such grief here if you were found, and you would be tormented, for my people would know that they had lost me because of my love for you.” Does it go too far beyond the available evidence to posit that Muldumarec is a kind of Guigemar in his world, unable or unwilling to love anyone before the lady-protagonist? (“Yet I could not come to you, nor leave my country, unless you had wished for me,” he informs the lady when first appearing to her.) Perhaps their mutual otherness brings him and the lady together.

Such speculations aside, my point in positing this underlying structure common to "Lanval" and "Yonec" – socially-alienated figure invokes a corresponding image of the Other in a realized and effectual form, forms a relationship with this gender-reversed alternate, unconsciously or unintentionally betrays the relationship, but is in some way ultimately vindicated – is to suggest another interpretation of what, to quote Ines’s post, “facilitates...transformation into an ‘other.’” Janel cogently highlights the formidable difficulties we face in trying to speak of Self and Other in a historical context so very different from our own, but I think she is also correct in maintaining that “certain values of the Self stand as constants.” By the same token, certain markers of the Other or grounds for “othering” likewise stand as constants. Foreigners, outcasts (self-imposed or not), those who cannot or will not participate in some socially-defined norm or practice, those who are excluded from any share in the institutions and power structures controlling them, will always be vulnerable to labeling and dismissal as “the Other.” In "Lanval" and "Yonec," norms and practices, institutions and power structures of the Anglo-Norman world form a pervasive, generally inimical background. Feudalism (the royal apportionment of “wives and lands to all” from which Lanval is unintentionally or deliberately excluded), masculine chivalric society, law courts, landholding, dynasty-building using women as marriageable pawns: all these forces surround and alienate Lanval and the lady, and even when representatives of them individually try to reintegrate these Others, as Gawain and his peers belatedly try to do for Lanval, their efforts yield no result. Society, in other words, facilitates or initiates othering, at least in these two lais.

From this perspective, the incongruity of the naming of "Yonec" makes more sense. Marie titles the poem "Yonec," even though Yonec, as a character, barely makes his presence known until the very end, because Yonec serves, in a sense, as a masculine embodiment of his mother, the nameless female protagonist. He translates her rage and grief into a socio-politically efficacious form. His mother’s death, more so than any of the facts she reveals about his father, motivates Yonec’s act; masculine loyalty plays hardly any part, and the instruments of male legitimacy and authority serve only as tools for redressing the grievances of the feminine Other: “when her son saw that she was dead, he struck off his stepfather’s head, and thus with his father’s sword avenged his mother’s grief.” The lai concludes with the offspring of the Other being vested with normative identity and authority: “Before leaving this place they made Yonec their lord.”

At the beginning of the poem, following the poignant detail of the imprisoned lady “weeping and looking at the sunlight,” Marie has her deliver an impressive tirade against all the societal forces that have brought her to this miserable situation. This speech concludes with what almost seems like a metafictional, self-referential detail, wherein the lady voices her desire for a realization of the very kind of story which Marie writes and in which the lady is a character:

I have often heard tell that in this country one used to encounter adventures
which relieved those afflicted by care: knights discovered maidens to their
liking, noble and fair, and ladies found handsome and courtly lovers, worthy
and valiant men. There was no fear of reproach and they alone could see them.
If this can be and ever was, if it ever did happen to anyone, may almighty God
grant my wish!

In lais like these which the lady considers so relevant to her situation, Marie articulates the tension between Self and Other, inclusion and exclusion, in her society.

Beginning with the obvious

Perhaps I'm being a little simplistic, but I would like to better understand the terms we will be throwing around throughout the course. For my own benefit, I wanted to write out my basic understanding of the terms used to structure our course. Please comment if you feel my knowledge or understanding is lacking.

To define a person, a place, or a culture as Other, one must first assign a culture, an idea, or a place as Self. The basic notion of Self is, of course, comprised of a number of shared cultural experiences and familiar daily rituals. How, then, do we define the Self in a time period, a geographical environment, and a catalog of shared experience that we do not recognize? Are we defining the Self in terms of our modern sensibilities or the sensibilities of our medieval authors?

We have, as modern readers, a fairly comprehensive idea of the Self, just by virtue of being part of the culture at large. However, no matter how well thoroughly we research the Middle Ages, its cultures and customs, we will never know how the collective culture defined the Self. Reading medieval literature with the shared and recent history, with the nationalism, and with the culture of a man or woman of 12th century Norman England or 11th century France is impossible. Is our class utterly hopeless because we cannot hope to understand the depth or the body of collective culture in the Middle Ages?

I think not. In the act of reading, we are writing. And regardless of context, certain values of the Self stand as constants. Occupying an outcast position in society, possessing a vengeful or malicious nature, and devaluing human life are all generally understood to be acts against decent human nature/our self. While it is important to note critical historical events and paradigms that inform the text, reading the text as modern readers is the most useful way to study a culture so far removed from our own. I wanted to clarify my critical intentions before attempting to grapple with the text and to differentiate the Other from the Self, which is to say nothing of the Monstrous.

In “Bisclavret,” Marie de France offers what can be interpreted as a sort of cautionary tale, warning against the malicious nature of her own sex. I tend to view the wife as a malicious character because of her immediate question after the revelation that her husband is a werewolf. She does not ask how he became a werewolf; she asks a practical question that leads him to reveal how he returns human form. Setting aside the vague question of what did the husband do to deserve such a betrayal, the wife nonetheless betrays him. From the rest of her lays, Marie de France seems to believe that female betrayal is inevitable whether the husband trusts the wife with his deep dark secrets or locks her in a tower.

All of which makes me question why would Marie de France vilify (or if not vilify, portray as flighty and untrustworthy) her female characters? Shouldn’t she be working as an agent of her, and consequently her gender’s, interests? Perhaps that’s where I’m mistaken in my thinking. Marie de France is a writer who happens to be a woman, not necessarily a woman writer in the modern sense. She wrote as her male counterparts did, which is to say she echoed the prevailing ideas about women based on the theology and the social climate of the Middle Ages. Although she is the other, the woman, she wrote in the context of Anglo-Norman culture, which is to say, the culture of men.

Imprisoned Women in Marie's Lais

Loosely following the thread of Ines’s post on “The Lais of Marie de France,” one can map out a further claim concerning women leading men to being the “monstrous” or “the other.” It is poignant that in several of the lais stories by Marie, the reader encounters the maiden in a heavily guarded prison. This reoccurring motif in Marie’s stories and seems to have the obvious meaning that this prison is for the older jealous husbands to keep their beautiful wives to themselves. However, it could also be to protect society (and handsome knights) from something “monstrous.” The women in these stories are initiators for tumultuous events once they encounter the noble knight. As stated in the introduction, the love between the maiden and knight is the “othering” we see. It is the “virtue of their loving that the protagonists are set apart from the rest of society.” The infiltration of the knight into the maiden’s prison is the initiation of this “othering” done to the couple.

In the story of “Guigemar,” the beautiful lady is kept in a prison “with a thick, high wall made of green marble.” The description of the high security of this prison proceeds for a whole paragraph, creating notions that this lady is either highly prized, or extremely hazardous to society. Granted, the ending to this story is positive – the two lovers are reunited, however the strenuous journeys both face when forced to separate are extremely painful. When Guigemar has to depart from his lady, “[he] sighed and wept, lamenting the lady frequently and praying to Almighty God to let him die a quick death.” Even the lady exclaims, “I prefer to die a speedy death than suffer this misfortune too long.” It appears that this lady causes sickness to her lover and herself, and living on this earth without “the other” is too much to bear.

In the story of “Yonec,” the beautiful wife is yet again imprisoned. Her jealous husband “locked her in his tower in a large paved chamber.” Here also is a lengthy description of the imprisonment for the woman. Once she and the hawk-knight fall in love, it is her alteration of appearance that ignites the suspicion of her husband and the death of her lover. Later her lover’s offspring brutally kills her husband. Indeed, much blood is shed because of a knight entering the prison of a captive woman.

There is something dangerous and desirable to these women who are imprisoned. The neglect and imprisonment they endure in the story becomes their ally in having these relationships with knights and their “othering.” Of course, the secrecy cannot last for long, and difficult circumstances ensue.

Marie, the Narrator

While reading "The Lais of Marie de France," I couldn't help feeling that the narrator reminded me of the Wife of Bath. Marie and the Wife of Bath seem to share one thing in common, they both believe that they know everything there is to know about love without providing their "listeners" with any real evidence to support their own presumed knowledge.

The Wife of Bath in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," begins by attributing all of her knowlegde regarding the relationships between men and women to "experience" and her five unsuccessful marriages. She also scews Bible stories to fit into the context of her argument. Marie attributes her knowledge to God, stating in the "Prologue," "Anyone who has received from God the gift of knowledge and true eloquence has a duty not to remain silent: rather should one be happy to reveal such talents." Like the Wife of Bath, Marie gives no substantial evidence as to how she aquired her "gift." All of her knowledge was bestowed upon her by God, therefore, it must be "true." However, throughout the text, Marie must remind us that she does not lie. In the unbelievable lay "Bisclavert," she ends the tale by adding "many of the women in the family, I tell you truly, were born without noses and lived noseless." Just as the WIfe of Bath uses and abuses the Bible for her own selfish gain, Marie abuses her self proclaimed knowledge from God.

As a result, Marie proves to be an unreliable narrator of these lais. The following examples taken from the lais provided the reader with the believe that like the Wife of Bath, Marie cannot be trusted in her retelling of these lais, nor in her "wise" words that she imparts to her listeners. In "Yonec," Marie explains that Yonec's mother's sorrow was so great, her looks began to fade, "as happens to any woman who fails to take care of herself." Again in the tale of "Lanval," Marie states "Lords, do not be surprised: a stranger bereft of advice can be very downcast in another land when he does not know where to seek help." These statements from Marie that appear throughout the readings are given with little to no evidence to support them. her knowledge cannot be trusted, therefore her retelling of the events cannot be either.

Women in "The Lais of Marie de France"

After reading the selections for class in, “The Lais de Marie France,” I found that in at two of the tales there was this underlying theme of women embodying a kind of feminine construct, one that assigns the power of manipulation and damnation. In addition to this, women seem to hold the promise of salvation for these men. Although, I haven’t fully developed a working definition for ‘monstrous’ or ‘other,’ from what we discussed in class it seems that the women in these tales facilitate men’s transformation into an ‘other’; at times, they also seem to embody both of these themes (‘monstrous’ and ‘other’), and can be seen as subliminal.

In the beginning of “Bisclavret,” the baron is already exhibiting this idea of the ‘monstrous’ on a literal level for he transforms into a werewolf, yet it is his wife who facilitates his transformation into the ‘other.’ In all of these tales it seems the main characters experience a kind of alienation, and I think this theme of being alien or apart from the majority can be associated with this idea of the ‘other.’ It is curious how Bisclavret’s wife not only insists on knowing where her husband disappears off to, but after knowing his secret, how he transforms into a werewolf, she persists in wanting to know his weakness. One could interpret the wife’s persistent questioning as manipulative in the way it influences the baron, and takes advantage of the love that’s between them. In “Bisclavret,” the lines, ‘You must not hide anything from me or doubt me in any way…that would not seem like true love,’ and, ‘She tormented and harried him so much,’ illustrate the wife’s manipulation. In knowing what will happen to Bisclavret if he ‘lost his clothes and were discovered in the state of a werewolf,’ the wife possesses even more power beyond that of manipulation. ‘Power’ that’s associated or assigned to the construct ‘woman,’ and reinforces the notion that women are manipulative and capable of damning, is reinforced when the wife takes his clothes, literally banishing Bisclavret into the woods and alienating him from his world - Bisclavret experiences a downfall that’s caused by his wife’s actions. In addition to this, by stealing his clothes she facilitates Bisclavret’s transformation into an ‘other,’ for not only does he experience alienation, but at one point in the story he is neither man nor werewolf. Although Bisclavret is physically an animal, he is instilled figuratively with the power of speech when he bites off his wife’s nose, attacks the lover she has taken, and everyone takes notices; by using his mouth, Bisclavret’s ‘biting’ becomes an active way of communicating to those around the grief and anger he feels towards those who have wronged him. Moreover, the wife in this tale not only holds the power to damn, but also promises salvation; it is only when the wife gives back her husbands clothes that he is freed from being a werewolf, for the time being. The wife or ‘Lady’ in this particular tale is never elevated beyond the ‘monstrous’ or ‘other,’ and cannot be taken as a ‘subliminal being,’ for in the end she is ‘condemned to being a ‘monster’ (has no nose), and an ‘other’ (is exiled). Yet, Lanval’s maiden I think embodies the sublime, while still retaining the ability to corrupt, damn, and save her lover.

In the tale of “Lanval,” the maiden facilitates his transformation into an ‘other,’ by figuratively alienating him from those around him. The maiden threatens to disappear with the line, ‘you will lose me forever if this love were to be known,’ and because of this Lanval can never voice his love or talk of his ‘beloved.’ One could argue that this threat is a form of manipulation, and even further, acts as method of alienating Lanval from the majority for he cannot talk freely and is verbally cut off from the world. In addition to this, the maiden’s threat also seems to foreshadow Lanval’s ‘damnation.’ The line, ‘He took his leave…often looking behind him, for he was greatly disturbed, thinking of his adventure and uneasy in his heart,’ seems to speak to this. Also, Lanval’s damnation is further reinforced when he experiences the loss of his love, having been confronted by the queen, and having confessed, ‘I love and am loved by a lady that should be prized above all others I know.’ The maiden’s threat to disappear becomes a promise of ‘damnation,’ and Lanval is further subjected to this state of being when he’s taken to court for having ‘offended’ the queen, and is unable to ‘provide proof’ of his beloved. Moreover, the woman in this tale also possesses the promise of salvation, and is elevated to the status of a ‘subliminal’ being. In the end, it is only at her mercy that he is spared, and she is finally revealed to everyone. The maiden is illustrated as a subliminal being not only through the beauty she possesses, but also through the animals she enters the court with. The ‘sparrowhawk’ is a symbol not only of royalty and power, but of the heavens and is also associated with many gods. The dog is a ‘keeper of boundaries between worlds,’ and is also associated with many goddesses. These animals reinforce the image of the maiden as subliminal, as a supreme or one can even say, spiritual being. But I also think it’s in her ability to facilitate Lanval’s transformation into an ‘other,’ and also through her power to both damn and save him that she too becomes subliminal.

Reading these selections I was always struck by the ‘power’ or influence women possessed. In “Guigemar,” the lovers’ anguish is only put to rest after the Lady unties the knot, and after Guigemar ‘sees’ her, feels the belt around her hips. Even in Yonec’s tale, the woman promises damnation/death and salvation, for she calls on her lover to come, and he is 'mortally wounded.' Athough the lover dies, he is avenged by and lives on through his son, Yonec. The women in these tales seem to embody polarities (monstrous vs. other, damnation/death vs. salvation/life, beauty vs. ugliness, etc.), and in doing so, surpass my ideas of the ‘monstrous’ and the ‘other,’ and become subliminal. It will be interesting to hear how everyone else reacts to these women, their actions, and if they too see them as elevated creatures. On a final note, isn’t it curious how in the introduction Marie’s identity/existence is questioned, and how like the women in these tales, at times she seems to be exhibiting the power of manipulation in her storytelling?

Attention: Classroom change!

I just got word that our classroom has been changed from Hurst 209 to Ward 101. It's just the building next door, so I don't anticipate any problems with the move. I'll see you in Ward tomorrow afternoon!

What makes for a good post?

Ideally, an entry posted to this blog should both record an interesting thought on the part of its author and strive to provoke further thought on the part of its readers. An entry should be clear and concise, and when appropriate it should make use of the Web-based resources available to blogs (for example, links to specific other pages under discussion or to sites hosting texts or forums of interest, and images that illustrate relevant points of interest).

Posts can vary in length. A short paragraph can suffice, provided it offers a complete idea or raises an interesting problem in a fully intelligible way. But a post may also constitute a brief essay in itself, if you are moved to pursue the thread of a particularly interesting topic. Given the screen-based interface, however, you should avoid posting lengthy entries that would require scrolling down for more than two or three screens at most. If you want to sustain an argument that's longer than that, you should really break it down into a series of separate posts. That will both ease readability and help to ensure that comments are focused on discrete points of interest.

As for the topics of your posts, all I ask is that they relate to the subject of our course. How they relate is up to you! You may choose to write a response to a current text under discussion, or you may prefer to continue an argument about a broader theoretical approach. You may also use this space to solicit feedback on your own research interests, or to explore other aspects of our topic that couldn't fit it into our syllabus. Reviews of other texts (including articles and books of criticism) are also appropriate, but make sure to avoid mere plot summary or paraphrase—give your readers a sense of the work's value and tackle its claims.

The main purpose of these blog entries is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information among participants in our class. The exchange can be as lively and as wide-ranging as you want it to be, as focused and as deeply-considered as you can make it. I expect that we'll all learn what posts work best by simply continuing to post, read, and comment regularly. I look forward to following the progress of our blog!